dimensions
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This survey course introduces students to the important and basic material on human fertility, population growth, the demographic transition and population policy. Topics include: the human and environmental dimensions of population pressure, demographic history, economic and cultural causes of demographic change, environmental carrying capacity and sustainability. Political, religious and ethical issues surrounding fertility are also addr...more
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A special event to mark the publication of Professor Barrow's new book, 'The Book of Universes'. This is a book about universes, a story that revolves around a single unusual and unappreciated fact: that Einstein’s famous theory of relativity describe universes – entire universes. Not many solutions of Einstein’s tantalizing universe equations have ever been found, but those that have are all very remarkable. Some of them describe universe...more
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Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner (AMST 246)Professor Wai Chee Dimock focuses on the themes of dying and not dying that reappear throughout For Whom the Bell Tolls. Marshaling Elaine Scarry's argument on the aesthetics of killing, she reads the execution of the Fascists as a representation of both aesthetic and ethical "ugliness" in death. She then turns to a discussion of the tragic-comic dimensions of not dying as depicted in the bullfight...more
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Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner (AMST 246)Professor Wai Chee Dimock begins her discussion of The Great Gatsby by highlighting Fitzgerald's experimental counter-realism, a quality that his editor Maxwell Perkins referred to as "vagueness." She argues that his counter-realism comes from his animation of inanimate objects, giving human dimensions of motion and emotion to things as varied as lawns, ashes, juicers, telephones, and automobiles. ...more
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Professor Shapiro takes up again Schumpeter's minimalist conception of democracy. When operationalized as a two turnover test, this conception of democracy proves far from minimalist, yet people often expect other things from democracy, like delivering justice. Although people experiencing injustice under other types of governments often clamor for democracy, they become disillusioned with democracy when a particular regime fails to ensure...more
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This lecture is an introduction to kinematics which ultimately leads (in Lecture 4) to trajectories in three-dimensions. Professor Lewin begins with a description of one-dimensional motion of a particle. He talks about average velocity, the importance of + and - signs, and our free choice of origin. He moves into a conversation about average speed vs. average velocity, instantaneous velocity (reviewing when velocity is zero, posi...more
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In this first lecture on the theory of literature in social contexts, Professor Paul Fry examines the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and Hans Robert Jauss. The relation of their writing to formalist theory and the work of Barthes and Foucault is articulated. The dimensions of Bakhtin's heteroglossia, along with the idea of common language, are explored in detail through a close reading of the first sentence of Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice. J...more
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Part I of Rotations. The lecture begins with examining rotation of rigid bodies in two dimensions. The concepts of "rotation" and "translation" are explained. The use of radians is introduced. Angular velocity, angular momentum, angular acceleration, torque and inertia are also discussed. Finally, the Parallel Axis Theorem is expounded.
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The human cost of World War I cannot be understood only in terms of demographics. To better understand the consequences of the war upon both soldiers and civilians it is necessary to consider mourning in its private, as well as its public dimensions. Indeed, for many French people who lived through the war, public spectacles of bereavement, such as the Unknown Soldier, were also conceived of as intensely private affairs. Both types of mour...more
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Professor Brian Wandell tells the inspirational story of Mike May, the world-record holder for blind downhill skiing. Wandell leads a multidisciplinary team of Stanford researchers who are working together to treat the many dimensions of blindness: retinal imaging, neural connections, and social psychology.
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This lecture is about vectors and how to add, subtract, decompose and multiply vectors. Decomposing vectors in two (or three) dimensions is a key concept that will be used throughout the course. Professor Lewin throws an object up, and decomposes its initial velocity into a horizontal and a vertical direction.
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Intuition of the gradient of a scalar field (temperature in a room) in 3 dimensions.
